Main Street Pub reopens in downtown Spartanburg with twice the bar space, new menu items

More seating, bigger bands, and new food options await first-time and returning customers at the newly remodeled Main Street Pub in downtown Spartanburg.

After three months closed, Main Street Pub is back in business. The neighborhood bar and restaurant, serving American pub-style food, opened on April 11 following extensive renovations.

“Our goal was to still keep the charm of the Main Street Pub, but just add on to it and make it feel natural, that it was always here,” said owner Raj Patel.

What have they been up to in there?

Main Street Pub has been renovated from the ground up — literally.

“It does feel familiar, but everything is brand new,” Patel said.

The renovations more than doubled the size of their kitchen, which is outfitted with brand-new equipment, and almost tripled the restaurant’s seating capacity, which now offers seating for 116 inside and 66 outside. The renovations also added a gaming corner with darts and two new video games.

In addition to new furniture and a brand new, 180-foot bar built in the style, but not the abnormally tall height, of the original, the expanded building also has new restrooms, plumbing, and sprinkler systems.

The pub restaurant came to what is now called the Grain District in 2009. Back then, Patel explains, the crew could make do with its tiny galley kitchen to create a menu that satisfied customers and complied with the state’s food requirement for a liquor license. The building’s footprint also was enough to accommodate visitors to downtown.

Now, its location is prime real estate across from the AC Hotel, the future baseball stadium, and the multi-use complex that’s coming with it. The opportunity to expand next door was too good to turn down.

“We’ve been here 14 years and we did things a lot differently back then,” Patel said. “So with the expansion that's happening in the city, we decided that it was the right time to go ahead and make this decision.”

Patel is also a partner in Main Street Pub’s next-door neighbor, Cribbs Kitchen, its recently opened second location Cribbs Kitchen Tyger River, and downtown Art Deco-inspired eatery The Kennedy, all with chef William Cribb. The new kitchen brings Main Street Pub up-to-date with his other downtown restaurants.

“[It] brings it up to the standard of the other kitchens that we have in town and allows us to execute more food and better food,” Patel said.

Bigger bands, more viewing options

The bigger space will not only accommodate more customers but allow more entertainment options, Patel said.

“We always host karaoke on Tuesday. But now, if you want to do karaoke and hang out and listen to karaoke, you can kind of hang out in that area. And if you're not interested in karaoke, you can come on the other side of the bar,” Patel said. “It gives people options of what they want to do.”

The extra space will also allow them to bring in bigger bands for their live music spots. Patel says they’re considering expanding their live entertainment as well.

“We've considered doing comedy shows now that we have the capacity to do so,” Patel said. “It just opens up  a lot of options for us that we didn't have before.”

Main Street Pub’s first big event post-renovations will be on Sunday, April 14.

“We’ll have live music playing on Sunday brunch during the Masters,” Patel said. “We’ll have a stream for every player for the Masters, so you can literally follow any player you want, which is something that we haven't been able to do in the past.”

The new space features 42 televisions, including on the patio, projector screens and a video wall inside. The space also has a new audio system.

New bar, menu additions

Behind the bar, frozen drink lovers will love the new slushie machine that is specially designed for alcoholic drinks. The machine is one of the first of its kind in South Carolina, according to Patel, can pour 3,000 ounces an hour, and allows for customizable drinks.

“You select the liquor that you'd like. You select what base you want, whether it's Coca-Cola or margarita, and then you select the flavor if you wanted to add a flavor to it. So for Coke, you can do cherry or blue raspberry and for margarita, you could do peach or watermelon,” Patel said. “We can change those flavors as well if something seasonal comes around, and even change the bases. We could change to piña colada if we wanted to.”

General Manager Adam Story said the menu had increased by about a dozen items spanning all areas of the menu.

“When I think of going to a sports pub or a sports bar, I don't think of sitting down and having a meat and three or sitting down and having steak and a baked potato, I think of a big nice sandwich, chicken wings, shareable appetizers, so that's the direction that we pushed the entire menu and just expanded on what we already knew how to do well,” Story said.

They added new options for some staples, for example, their loaded spuds dish can now be made with their new thick-cut chips, and they have a new wing flavor, jalapeño cheddar.

They also brought a couple of popular specials, like their al pastor tacos and Caribbean jerk nachos, back to be part of the regular menu.

Story and kitchen manager David Brent were excited to share the changes at Main Street Pub with their regulars.

“I’m just happy to be around my friends and family, to able to create some wonderful food for people to enjoy,” Brent said.

Some of the new highlights include:

• The Bougie Pretzel: A Bavarian pretzel topped with pickled vegetables, provolone and burrata cheese and cured meats, the Bougie Pretzel is Main Street Pub’s take on a charcuterie board.

• The Italian Job: The kitchen and general managers’ favorite, this hot sandwich on a provolone-crusted bun is filled with hot capicola, prosciutto, mortadella, fresh burrata and pesto mayo.

• Calabash Shrimp: These shrimp are marinated in buttermilk and hot sauce, coated in a savory breading, and fried up light and crispy.

Check it out

Main Street Pub is located at 252 W. Main St. in Spartanburg. It is open from 11 a.m.-12 a.m. Sunday and Monday and from 11 a.m.-2 a.m. Tuesday-Saturday.

Samantha Swann covers city news, development and culture in Spartanburg. She is a University of South Carolina Upstate and Greenville Technical College alumna. Contact her at sswann@shj.com or on Instagram at @sam_on_spartanburg.

This article originally appeared on Herald-Journal: Spartanburg's Main Street Pub is back with more space, bigger menu